The present invention relates to an indication element with a protective layer and a process for producing the same.
There are many kinds of indication elements for use in sheet-like articles with a back number and other information which are attached to the breast or back of wear of player in a variety of sports competitions; name cards or tags, and nameplates or doorplates for identification of a person or a variety of places such as a school, company or government office; boards indicating schedules of trains, streetcars, buses or the like; a variety of information boards indicating names of stations, etc; boards indicating names of town or street numbers; and a variety of indoor or outdoor signboards.
In the case of these indication elements, the format for a kind of indication element is unified but many kinds of produce which have different indication contents with each other must be produced for every kind of indication element. For this reason, heretofore, the production of such indication elements was a typical case of a multikind and small-quantity production.
Accordingly, the indication elements were generally produced by hand. However, there has been a demand for automatization of the production thereof to reduce price due to a rise in labor cost and a need for shortening the period from ordering to delivery.
An attempt to use as an indication element a label or paper sheet on which print images were produced by means of a computer or word processor was made. However, an indication element of good quality was not obtainable.
One of the reasons therefor is as follows: In the case of a conventional handwritten indication element, an image was drawn on a resin sheet by using a paint having good weatherability and abrasion resistance. However, in the case of utilizing a computer for producing print images, an ink which gave a print image having a fastness comparable to that obtained by using the conventional paint and also having a property of forming a print image on a resin sheet was unavailable.
In order to over the problem of poor fastness of the printed image of the ink, the present inventor made a resin film laminated to the surface of a resin sheet on which a print image was previously formed. However, the ink of the print image flowed by the heat and pressure during the lamination, whereby the print image was deformed so that the resulting article was not acceptable as an indication element.
As a result of trial and error, the present inventor has developed an indication element which has a clear image, even though the element is produced by utilizing a lamination technique.